DOHA
PRIVATE equity firm Citadel Capital SAE and a group of Qatari investors have formed a joint venture to bring liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Egypt, underlining the Gulf state’s pledge to help rebuild the North African country’s economy.
Egypt’s Citadel Capital, and investment bank QInvest along with other Qatari investors, said they would build and own facilities required to place a floating LNG storage and regasification unit that would deliver the fuel to Egypt by mid-2013, the private equity company said in a statement on Thursday.
Qatari investors would own a 51 percent stake in the project and Citadel the remainder. No details were given about the cost of the project.
The gas-rich Arab Gulf nation, the world’s largest exporter of LNG, in September said it would invest $18 billion in Egypt’s battered economy in areas such as energy and tourism. Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world which frequently suffers from power cuts, is trying to rebuild its economy after months of political unrest.
Citadel Capital Chairman Ahmed Heikal said the project would form an “important pillar of Egypt’s energy security at a key moment in the nation’s development”.
“We believe that Egypt is in strong need of additional natural gas to feed the power generation sector and supply Egypt’s industrial base with a reliable, clean source of energy,” he added.
Gas would be imported from Qatar to Egypt and transmitted through its national gas grid and then sold to domestic users, Citadel said.
Qatari investors and Citadel teamed up this year, agreeing a $3.7 billion financing package for an Egyptian Refining Co project, in which state-run Qatar Petroleum International is a shareholder.
Citadel is a publicly-listed company on Egypt’s stock exchange and has over $9.5 billion of investments in mining, transport and energy, among others.
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